Darkthrone - Astral Fortress (2022) Review

A fairly quick continuation to last year's Eternal Hails..., Darkthrone's new record Astral Fortress is a piece of the same bread. Loaded with an organic sound, traditional heavy / doom metal is wholly embraced once again through the characteristic lens of the band, which is their own but still stubbornly bowing to the ways of the primordial metal. There is no colourful, plagiarised artwork this time, yet it is now something much closer to the real life of the band members and reminiscent of the choice made in Arctic Thunder when it comes to a cover piece. While often advertising a return to black metal practices for several of their recent albums, I fail to hear it and the records don't exert such a vibe at all anymore, but it did put a smirk in my face listening to the middle paced, cold riffs of the closing track "Eon", which give a hint in that direction a bit. Other than that, "Kolbotn, West of the Vast Forests" stands as an unusual interlude for some of its non-symmetric melodies and further from these points, the rest of Astral Fortress is business as usual for Darkthrone. They can still produce a lot of flavourful, old school heavy riffing sequences, the acoustic guitar / synth usage is slight but detectable and the album comes forth as what it is, a nice snapshot of the current state of the band. The structure of the tracks is wonderful, moving from fast to slow and to really slow melodic parts, Nocturno Culto's raspy vocals fit like cherries on cake and the overall production feels natural, as is the band itself. It's great to see that the two share basically all positions in creating the album, from songwriting to execution, and for someone with such longevity, Darkthrone still have some inspiration left. The material is not ground breaking, but the fans will love it, and there might be something for everyone. At the core though, are the 80's. I found the album more consistent than Eternal Hails... to some extent, but these two are siblings. [3/5 - Good]

Mortician - Chainsaw Dismemberment (1999) Review

This must be one of the most straightforward bands ever, and can serve as a great introduction to the general approach that is followed in the genre of goregrind. I wouldn't claim Mortician is a brutal death metal band, and definitely not grindcore, as the way their albums are constructed is simply based on the most down-tuned, often ultra slow, guitar riffs, dressed in thick distortion, growls as cavernous as possible and a flood of movie samples, in this case horror movies. Most of the tracks are quite short in duration (28 pieces, 49 minutes total length) and sometimes the samples are longer than the music itself, which hardly changes at any moment. A noisy broken-computer-cable sound you'll listen here is actually the bass, and the grooves in the record don't even try to be attractive, yet Mortician try to be as disgusting as possible but with a subtle sense of artistry and not as explicit or gory as other goregrind bands have dared to appear at times. Chainsaw Dismemberment doesn't aim for much, it skips most aspects of music but puts all its boost on one: the brutality. It's not necessarily the heaviest record you will listen and definitely not a technical one, yet the constant pummelling of noisy instruments and snoring bear vocals, along with classic horror movie passages, a flawless drum machine because who has time for drums, an amazing cover art, somehow makes listening to Mortician low-key addictive. In a world of extraordinary, flashy metal artists, this band doesn't even pretend to change and possibly is one of the perpetrators of a style that proves to be stubborn and pushing the extreme, yet let me say this: putting together as much explicit material as possible for the sake of it, doesn't make you good. Mortician don't do that, and instead pick a loving topic as they're surely cinema geeks, they pack up the dirtiest, most monotonous wall of noise and throw it all at your face, but it still doesn't feel too much to handle. [3/5 - Good]

Movie samples used in the record: When A Stranger Calls, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Silent Night, Bloody Night, I Drink Your Blood, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Zombi 2, Bloodeaters, The Crazies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Wolfen, Friday the 13th Parth 2, Slaughterhouse, Rats: Night of Terror, Inferno, Phantasm II

Panopticon - Kentucky (2012) Review

Kentucky, Panopticon's fifth full length album, is nothing short of magnificent. Throughout this project's evolution, main-man Austin Lunn has shown many hints of unique greatness, but all his strongpoints wonderfully align in this record, the perfect combination between atmospheric black metal and blue grass. A rather personal record, discussing the musician's home state and touching upon real struggles of land and people, it is a treat starting from the lyrics, which should be no means be skipped this time. Kentucky breathes through heavy emotions and expresses its worldview, while being capable of taking the listener by hand and along all the different scenes of the tracks, which are also musically perfect. Lunn is an extremely creative and efficient composer, and this is obvious with both the folk and the metal parts of this album. His guitar style endorses melody through riff and solo, on top of fast-paced atmospheric black metal foundations with added flutes for the more epic feels, yet his non-metal tracks are separate entities of well-delivered blue grass. At the same time, all content is connected and one, for conveying the message, which is a loud one. The vocals in Kentucky are also wonderful, when singing with a clean voice or the raspy, worn out screams of the black metal parts of the album. There's several interesting samples to be heard during the listen as well, just making the story even richer. In terms of black metal, Panopticon diverge significantly not only lyrically but also in terms of music, yet works like Kentucky stand as absolute sincere works of the artist that will put a lot of self-proclaimed devil worshippers out there to the test. I fully appreciate this album's lyrical content, its topics, the top-notch quality of the music and the truthful vision of the creator, who hit a smashed the mark with this work. Don't skip any track, enjoy all the nuances and absorb what it has to say. Releases like these are quite rare in extreme metal. [4.5/5 - Brilliant]

10-year anniversary

 

Goatwhore - Angels Hung from the Arches of Heaven (2022) Review

Throughout their 25 years of existence, Goatwhore have been rather consistent with their full length albums, with this five year difference between this new record and their previous (Vengeful Ascension, 2017) being the longest break between releases they have ever had. The band adopted a modern black / death metal sound quite quickly and do not aim for indiscernible heaviness in their music, instead their works are clear as day, blasphemous and often borrowing elements from neighbouring genres like thrash or even heavy metal. Angels Hung from the Arches of Heaven is no different, and it features once again the same white / black / red design approach as they have had for the last one and a half decades. One strongpoint of Goatwhore has always been the visuals as well as the lyrical content, which shines through in this record when reading the texts behind it, yet the vocals are often clear enough. A lot of aggressive moments co-exist with frequent soloing and tempo changes, the production is transparent as an ice crystal and the vocals range from growling to shrieking, but all within reasonable boundaries. There's specific tracks in Angels Hung... that stand out, for example "Born of Satan's Flesh", "The Bestowal of Abomination" or "The Devil's Warlords", which showcase the band's typical sound but at its peak. At the same time, as many Goatwhore records, multiple tracks and a long enough record do not succeed to avoid filler moments, and it's evident in the less entertaining pieces like in the middle of the record, specifically tracks five through eight. I always have such issues with this group, which otherwise always brings forth decent offerings with some above average moments. Angels Hung... closes with the decent and epic "And I Was Delivered from the Wound of Perdition", which has you thinking that it would have been more productive to stick to this song writing than the more generic guitar melodies of "Death from Above" or "Voracious Blood Fixation", which sometimes feel like distorted versions of a strange creature born from Aura Noir and late Death Angel. However, Goatwhore manage to avoid complete ruination with Angels Hung... and it's surely aesthetically pleasing. [3/5 - Good]